


better find another superstition

by prettydizzeed



Category: Halloween Movies - All Media Types, Halloweentown (1998)
Genre: Amulets, Getting Together, M/M, Magic, Time Travel, University, post Return to Halloweentown
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27315454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettydizzeed/pseuds/prettydizzeed
Summary: Dylan paces the length of his narrow dorm room, certain with a strength far greater than that of his pride, down to his gut, of two things. The first is that he has to destroy the amulet. The second is much harder to admit, but equally true: he can’t do it alone.Which raises the question of how does one find a piece of hay in a needle factory, or, more to the point, someone who, even at their most well-meaning, won’t be tempted by power in a school of power-hungry people? And that’s when it hits him.What kind of a warlock doesn’t care about power?The mortal kind.
Relationships: Ethan Dalloway/Dylan Piper
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	better find another superstition

**Author's Note:**

> happy halloween <3 
> 
> title from baby you’re a haunted house by gerard way

Dylan paces the length of his narrow dorm room, certain with a strength far greater than that of his pride, down to his gut, of two things. The first is that he has to destroy this; the amulet is capable of enabling unspeakable evil, and even if he’s able to keep it safe for his lifetime—which is honestly doubtful, given his family’s track record with nefarious figures—what about after that? It isn’t worth the risk, and also, it sounds exhausting. He wants to spend his college years studying, and starting a research project, and maybe making a couple of friends while he isn’t under a mind-control spell, not stressing over a family heirloom too dangerous to see the light of day. Dylan has always been a man of logic, so it’s the result of less than thirty seconds for him to say, fuck sentimental value, this thing has to go.

The second is much harder to admit, but equally true: he can’t do it alone. 

Which raises the question of how does one find a piece of hay in a needle factory, or, more to the point, someone who, even at their most well-meaning, won’t be tempted by power in a school of power-hungry people? And that’s when it hits him.

_What kind of a warlock doesn’t care about power?_

_The mortal kind._

*

It’s bizarrely reminiscent of a popsicle stick riddle, Dylan thinks as he waits, scuffing his shoes against the worn-out carpet, or worse, a spell. But Ethan can only do anything with the former, now, and it shouldn’t matter that Dylan remembers his favorite flavor is grape, but it does. 

_Ethan, eyes wide and mouth stained purple from only the first taste, looking at Dylan in disbelief. “It doesn’t taste anything like grapes!”_

_Dylan laughing, patting him on the back and making sure his hand doesn’t linger too long. “Hate to break it to you, but none of these flavors even closely resemble fruit. I still can’t believe you don’t have popsicles over there.”_

_Ethan shrugs. “I’d say the eternal autumn renders them a little unnecessary, but we have an ice cream parlor, so who knows.”_

_“Here,” Dylan says, sliding a paper towel under where Ethan’s hand sits in mid-air, already streaked with melted purple, “Mom’ll freak if we get her counters all sticky.”_

A bleary-eyed Ethan Dalloway opens the door, and Dylan shakes off the memory.

“Oh, hey, man,” Ethan says, yawning, “What’s up?”

“Uh,” Dylan says eloquently, resolutely not looking at Ethan’s unfairly endearing bedhead or the sections of his collarbones made visible by the stretched-out neck of his old t-shirt. He glances on either side of the hall and doesn’t see anyone, but you can never be too careful. “Can I come in?”

Ethan blinks, then seems to process the question. “Oh, yeah, sure, just a sec.” There’s the sound of what is almost definitely him kicking dirty clothes under the bed, and then he opens the door again. “Welcome to my humble abode,” he says, sweeping one arm out in a grand gesture at the tiny room. “Desk chair is all yours.”

“Thanks,” Dylan says, and sits. “So, uh,” he says once Ethan is perched on the bed, “remember how Marnie destroyed that evil amulet a couple weeks ago?”

“Hard to forget,” Ethan says, nodding. He looks pleasant enough, if still tired, but Dylan can sense the lurking concern. It’d been unbearably awkward between them for a solid two weeks after Halloween, Dylan unsure how to say “thanks for not letting me be trapped as a dog for all eternity, and also sorry if I licked your face, it’s all kind of a blur” and Ethan brimming with palpable concern that neither of them knew what to do with. Eventually, Dylan swallowed what was left of his pride, casually dropped into conversation that he’d started seeing the school counselor, and watched the stiff line of Ethan’s shoulders relax, but that doesn’t mean Ethan has stopped worrying. 

Which, like, he’s one to talk, because it’s not like he doesn’t have his own mountain of unresolved trauma, but whatever. Dylan can’t say he isn’t glad to know he cares.

“Yeah, well, she didn’t,” Dylan says, “Destroy it, that is. It’s, uh, currently residing in my dorm room.”

“ _What,_ ” Ethan says, and then, “Fuck,” and then, “What the fuck?” which was basically Dylan’s response, too, when he was looking for a quote for his history essay and instead found a piece of history he’d really rather forget. 

“So what are we going to do about it?” Ethan asks, and that’s a relief, but Dylan still feels obligated to give him an out. 

“You don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to. I just—I trust you, and I didn’t know who else to go to.”

Ethan’s face softens and stiffens all at once, gratitude and guilt clashing across his features. “I probably don’t deserve that,” he says, and Dylan doesn’t say _Bullshit, you tracked me down when I was a dog and somehow didn’t make it weird afterwards, you tried to make my bullies apologize to me,_ because it doesn’t seem like the time, “but thank you. And of course I’m in this with you. What’re you thinking?” 

Dylan lets out a long breath. “It takes three Cromwells to destroy it. Marnie is out, since she didn’t actually get rid of it the first time, and based on something she told me, I think Mom might’ve suspected as much and not done anything about it, so just to be safe, not her either. Which leaves Grandma Aggie and Sophie, but they’re god knows where—god knows _when_ —right now.” 

“So we have to figure out how to pinpoint someone in time and get you to them and back safely despite you not having any experience with time travel magic,” Ethan concludes, and Dylan winces but nods. 

“Yeah, pretty much. It sounds bad when you put it like that. Not that it can exactly get much worse than being the unwilling owner of an oppression amulet.” 

Ethan hesitates, then says, “You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but—are you angry at Marnie?”

“Immensely,” Dylan affirms, and Ethan looks relieved, like that gives him permission to be furious and disturbed, too. “I don’t know what she was thinking. She obviously wasn’t. No piece of hundreds-year-old jewelry is worth the possibility of that falling into the wrong hands.”

“Agreed,” Ethan says, and he’s been pale ever since Dylan explained why he’s here, but it finally clicks: the ghost Ethan is seeing is that of his own father, the specter of the devastation he could have wrought with such a device. Would have, if things had gone slightly different when they were in high school, if he’d still been one of the Dominion, if—yeah. No wonder Ethan looks world-weary and raw.

“I’m sure the library has some stuff on the mechanics of locating someone in time,” Ethan says, “it’s just a matter of not looking suspicious, or even interesting, about it. I’d love to just spend the next thirty-six hours poring over texts and get rid of this thing once and for all, but I have no idea who else was involved with the Dominion, or maybe a collaborator or sympathizer. And if they get even the remotest idea that the Gift is still out there—”

“Marnie’s subpar acting skills aren’t going to be able to save our skins a second time,” Dylan finishes, and Ethan snorts, probably against his better judgement, and shoots him a look like _Is this really the time to be making fun of your sister?_ He’s an only child, so he doesn’t understand that it is always the time to pick on Marnie.

“Anyway,” Ethan says, “it’s probably best to work in stages. Only check out one book on the subject at a time, that sort of a thing.” He runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up even worse. “That’d be really slow going, though, and no offense, but it’s not exactly very secure in your room. And if someone finds out it wasn’t destroyed, that’s one of the first places they’ll look…” 

Dylan sighs. “You’re right on both counts.” He gets up to pace, moving his hands like he’s sketching out a timeline on a whiteboard. He could use magic to make it actually show up, but he doesn’t want to, so he’ll just have to hope Ethan follows along. “Okay, so assuming five of us know about it—you, me, Mom, Marnie, and I’m going to go ahead and bet she told Aneesa—each day that passes exponentially increases the risk that one of us will slip up and someone will catch on. It’s been almost a month since Halloween, which could work in our favor, but it could also mean anyone associated with the Dominion who was left has had more time to regroup. Plot their revenge or whatever.” He gestures at a point on his imaginary line. “So there’s an ideal balance between speed and discreetness, we just… don’t know where it is.” 

Ethan, surprisingly, is not looking at Dylan like he’s gone off the rails. He’s looking at him like he gets it. “Too fast, and we call too much attention to ourselves,” he summarizes, “but too slow, and it doesn’t matter, because if someone’s out there, they’ll catch on anyway.”

“Exactly.” Dylan adjusts his glasses. “So—maybe the best move is to err on the side of speed but have a good cover and make a plan for if we get caught.” 

Ethan nods, then gestures animatedly at Dylan. “Wait, you said you have a physics paper due finals week, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“That’s our cover! I mean, it means I probably shouldn’t check out any of the books, but that should be okay. Just do your paper on the physics of time travel, and as long as we find your grandma and Sophie by the end of the semester, we have the perfect explanation.”

“‘Just do your paper on the physics of time travel,’ he says, as if that hasn’t been torturing the most brilliant human minds for centuries,” Dylan teases, and Ethan, surprisingly, flushes pink. “It’s a good idea,” he assures him, which only makes Ethan blush more. Huh. “Since time travel is actually, like, achievable here, and there are existing sources and stuff, it honestly shouldn’t be that hard to write. God, I’m going to turn in a paper for my freshman physics class that would win me the Nobel Prize back home. Frustrating wonders never cease.”

With that settled, they make a plan to meet at the library that night, with Ethan bringing his own assignments to make everything look as normal as possible. Just two typical stressed and sleep-deprived college students, no potential world-saving going on here. 

God, Marnie is going to owe him dishwashing duty for the rest of her _life._

Ethan’s already spread out at a table in the back of the library when Dylan gets there at exactly ten o’clock, multicolored highlighters spread out across diagrams of different magical species’ digestive systems. Dylan remembers how wide his eyes got when they took all the exchange students to Home Depot after the first day of class. He’d loaded his basket with glitter gel pens and neon markers, and Dylan had vowed to throw his first—and probably last—punch if anyone at school gave Ethan shit about it. 

“Hey,” Dylan says, setting down the books he’d narrowed down as the best starting points. Ethan is sitting with his back to the rest of the room and has left the chair against the wall empty for him, meaning he’s effectively blocking Dylan from view with his body. It’s really thoughtful of him, and it makes Dylan’s heart do the anatomical equivalent of leaving tire marks on his pericardium, which can’t be healthy.

“Hey,” Ethan says back, smiling brightly at him despite the circumstances, and Dylan swallows hard. _Concentrate,_ he reminds himself. _Evil family heirloom now, unrequited pining later._

“What’d you find?” Ethan asks, and Dylan sits down and shows him the titles. A heavy leather-bound textbook labeled _Fundamentals of Time Travel,_ a slimmer volume with an engraving reading _Introduction to Time and Space,_ and, the luckiest find of all, a dissertation on the theory of pinpointing a specific location in the slipstream. Based on the abstract, it seems vaguely similar to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which Dylan has been reading human dissertations on since he was in eighth grade, so that at least should be familiar territory.

After a week of digging through the texts, Dylan has a third of his physics paper written but is no closer to being able to actually get to Grandma Aggie and Sophie. His weekdays have fallen into a basic routine: class, lunch, homework, dinner, homework, library, try to get back to the room in time to get at least six hours of sleep. At least he has more time available now that he’s doing one person’s worth of work rather than four. 

“Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way,” Ethan says after another unsuccessful week, this time with more intermediate-level texts. Dylan’s paper is finished by now, he’s just waiting to turn it in so they can keep up their cover as long as possible.

“What do you mean?” Dylan asks, looking up from the diagram of slipstream flow patterns he’s been explaining.

“Sophie’s learning to time travel as part of her witch training,” Ethan explains. “Maybe we need less science and more, you know, magic.”

“You wound me,” Dylan says, and Ethan laughs, but he has a point. “Okay, let’s discreetly hunt down some spell books.”

They decide that this is the point at which to err on the side of speed, so they plan to make an all-nighter of it. By ten o’clock Friday night, their usual table is piled with spell books, and they sigh at the same time before getting to work.

“Nothing,” Dylan says after two hours, setting yet another volume into the reject stack. He’s tempted to use magic to speed read; it’s not like he hasn’t considered it before, but things feel more urgent tonight, and it feels selfish to refrain just because, what, he wants to spend time with Ethan? Before he can say something, though, Ethan nudges him.

“Check this out,” he says, tapping a finger on the page to indicate the section.

“‘The Lovers’ Portal,’” Dylan reads, and swallows. “‘One of magick and one mortal / to hearts’ desire led thru this portal. / Uncross thy stars if thou art certain; / some paths, once tread, must be forgotten.’” He stares at the page, head spinning. “My mom wasn’t the first one.” 

Ethan tilts his head questioningly, and he stumbles for the right words. “I know we have, like, bigger issues, but—fuck. ‘One of magick and one mortal,’ ‘uncross thy stars,’ it’s—it’s an escape route for people like her. Who fall in love with someone from a different world and leave it all behind for them. It’s, like, a loophole around the old portal between worlds, I guess—you don’t have to wait until it’s Halloween in the mortal world to cross over, if it’s the heart’s desire of both you and the person you’re leaving for.”

“Fuck,” says Ethan, which about covers it. “So this part—‘some paths, once tread, must be forgotten.’ That means they can’t come back?”

“I think so,” Dylan agrees, heavy with the history implied by the short lines.

Ethan runs a hand through his hair, while Dylan gives up and just puts his head on the table. They finally found something that could work, but it could mean he’d be stuck between times forever. 

“There’s got to be some sort of exception,” Ethan says, and Dylan picks his head up long enough to give him a baleful look.

“What, like the ancient magic loophole to navigate the labyrinth of time will have its own loophole?” 

Ethan snaps his fingers. “Dude, that’s it!”

Dylan blinks. “What is?”

“You referring to it as a labyrinth is what made me think of it—there’s this spell, ο Μίτος της Αριάδνης, Ariadne’s Twine. It uses an object to create, like, a beacon to the person who gave it to you.”

“Shit, that’s perfect. Do you remember it?” 

Ethan looks away, but he nods. “Yeah, uh—here,” he says, pulling his pocket watch out of his bright red pants and setting it on the table. “Repeat after me.” 

Dylan nods, and repeats the short spell: “My heart to yours be tied / Our paths together be woven / Rhythms of your heart and my footsteps be aligned.”

Which, damn. It’d be an emotionally charged moment no matter what the words were, alone in the library in the middle of the night with the flickering light from the sconce overhead falling across their bent heads, their voices lowered, their hands occasionally brushing against each other over a page. But this—Dylan feels laid bare, his ribcage pried open and all his organs on display like one of Ethan’s anatomical drawings. It’s made both better and worse by the fact that Ethan looks just as vulnerable.

“And return you to my arms,” Ethan finishes, cheeks flushed but eyes meeting Dylan’s.

“And return me to your arms,” Dylan echoes, and the watch glows. Ethan picks it up and places it in Dylan’s palm, covering his hand with his own for a brief moment. Dylan feels it beat so rapidly it’s practically vibrating.

“That should do it,” he says, clearing his throat and looking away. 

“Guess it’s portal time,” Dylan says. “Uh—I’ll go get the amulet.”

He half-expects to get intercepted by a shadowy figure on the way back from his room, but the only people he passes are a couple of drunk students stumbling to their own beds. “Here goes,” he says once he’s back to the table, adrenaline rushing through him, and together they read the spell to open the portal.

“Feels weird to do that again,” Ethan says, looking at the shimmering blue oval against the library wall, and Dylan figures now isn’t the best time to speculate about the mechanics of a spell that’s dependent upon participation of someone who isn’t a magic user, but god does he want to look into that later. 

Ethan presses the watch into Dylan’s palm for the second time that night, and Dylan takes a deep breath and steps towards the portal. 

“Wait,” Ethan says when he’s about to step through, and Dylan turns. “I, uh,” he says, “There’s one more thing I want to give you before you go, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah,” Dylan breathes, and Ethan steps close to him, puts one hand on Dylan’s shoulder and the other on his jaw, tilts his head close to Dylan’s.

“Is this okay?” Ethan asks, and when Dylan nods against his hand, Ethan kisses him.

Then Dylan steps back into time, Ethan’s heartbeat thumping against his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> i’m on tumblr @campgender ! feel free to send me prompts for these two there or in the comments!


End file.
